Tesla says two former employees behind May data breach

livemint.com:

Tesla, the American electric carmaker, Monday in a legal disclosure said two of its former employees were behind a data breach that compromised personal information of over 75,735 people including staff, reported Reuters A total of 75,735 people were affected by the data breach, including nine residents of Maine. The people appear to be current or former employees of the Austin, Texas-based automaker.

Data exposed by the breach was leaked to German media outlet Handelsblatt, Steven Elentukh, Tesla's data privacy officer, said. “A foreign media outlet (named Handelsblatt) informed Tesla on May 10, 2023 that it had obtained Tesla confidential information," according to a copy of an Aug.

18 letter by Tesla to those impacted that accompanied the data breach notification. The German media outlet told the Tesla that it had received confidential information, which included identifiable information like name, address, phone number and social security numbers, Tesla said in the submission dated Aug.

18. “The investigation revealed that two former Tesla employees misappropriated the information in violation of Tesla’s IT security and data protection policies and shared it with the media outlet." “Tesla also obtained court orders that prohibit the former employees from further use, access, or dissemination of the data, subject to criminal penalties," the letter stated.

“Tesla cooperated with law enforcement and external forensics experts and will continue to take appropriate steps as necessary." At the time, Tesla identified the employees who leaked the data, filed lawsuits against them and seized their devices, the company said. This Tesla breach comes after Reuters reported in April that groups of Tesla employees privately shared